Now It’s Time for Twinkle Dee & Twinkle Dum to Avoid Selling Cubs Out
Forget the Home Run Derby or the All-Star Game itself, the best moment of the Midsummer Classic was Bruce Levine’s viral tweet. What appeared to have been a text message intended for a member of the Cubs’ coaching staff was somehow sent out via social media, igniting a firestorm of hilarity and speculation. Any hope to pawn this off on a hacker was lost in the clearly Levine-esque misspellings, not to mention the stalwart scribe’s previous brushes with Twitter infamy.
“You and the other coaches have been the stars of the team being 12 games over .500. Let’s Hope twinkle dee and twinkle dum don’t sell you guys out like the 2025. Enjoy the t the family time pal,” read the ill-fated message.
It doesn’t take much sleuthing to figure out that the misnamed duo of Through the Looking-Glass fame is Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins, though there are still plenty of questions about why Levine would have called them that. The smart money is on John Mallee or Tommy Hottovy, with the former drawing speculation due to his multiple stints with the club and the latter because he’s been around so long and has younger kids. The offense has carried the team while patching the tattered pitching staff has been a tall task, so both coaches fit the bill.
Does Kalshi have a line on this yet?
For those who are interested, Tweedledee and Tweedledum actually originated from a John Byrum epigram before being co-opted by Lewis Carroll for his iconic series about Alice in Wonderland. It would have been really fun if Levine had thrown in something about the Jabbawockeez, but maybe he’s saving that for later.
The tweet was eventually deleted and Levine has not commented on the matter in the two days since, but a Cubs spokesman told the Sun-Times that he has apologized to Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins. The matter is supposedly water under the bridge, which may be a great deal of lip service given how deleterious this could be to a reporter’s reputation. It’s one thing to share a crude political meme, and quite another to raise questions about your vocational aptitude.
Regardless of whether and how Levine will be able to cover the team moving forward, the official conclusion of the first half means Hoyer (Dee) and Hawkins (Dum) have a lot of work to do. Pitching is the most obvious lever to pull, whether it’s landing their “dream” target of Sonny Gray or going in a different direction. Drafting 16 pitchers with their 21 picks over the weekend provides a little more leeway when it comes to parting with prospects, so we’ll just have to see what the rotund little men in the front office choose to do.
All we know for sure is that this leadership team is wont to mitigate risk to the greatest possible extent, which leads to constant attempts at threading an imaginary needle. The problem is that said needles reside in a series of haystacks through which the front office execs must constantly comb. That often makes either Hoyer or Hawkins appear ineffectual, which isn’t a great look for a team that can’t catch the Brewers despite carrying a much larger payroll each season.
Ideally, Levine’s gaffe will go down as little more than a footnote in the sordid history of Cubs Twitter as the team adds the right pieces to make a nice postseason run. But if things fall apart, especially if the front office swings big trades that flop immediately while sending valuable young players elsewhere, we’re looking at some inescapable new nicknames.
